Older Spill Releasing 'Small Amounts'

A second spill in the Gulf? Sort of. Federal officials say a group of wells have been leaking "small amounts of oil" since Hurricane Ivan roared through in 2004. Ivan brought down a production platform about 10 miles off the Louisiana coast, and 26 wells have since been leaking about 14 gallons a day, or less than a third of a barrel, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

"There are hundreds of small oil leaks every year in the Gulf of Mexico," says an Interior Department official, and this is just one of them. Worries about a second spill have been percolating since Skytruth.org posted satellite images of an oil sheen southwest of the Deepwater Horizon site. The wells are controlled by Taylor Energy, which says the sheen is the result of cleanup work at the site that began long ago, reports AP.

(More Gulf oil spill stories.)